Induction

induction 1-2dyptychcolor photographs

Upprif

Like a crystal, the work that you see here grew almost as if by natural forces out of the site.

Surely, I had spread the word that I was looking for scrap iron, searched dumpsters and scrap graveyards, contacted the farmers around. My thought was that this material, having been torn down from original functions, left to rot, would be reintroduced the possibilities of shaping its own future manifestation. I felt the urge to gather things together, believing that the different bits and pieces would manifest their inner logic and resilience and grow, blossom (of væmið?) into crystalisations that would build up a logical inner sense. What has been torn down, would be torn up.

This could only make sense rooted within a local context, and I was assisted by a local driver and (krana- og vörubílstjóri) – who much to my amazement suggested humongous items, that I had for obvious reasons outruled due to their bulk.

The sculpture took a crucial leap in scale, the whole idea resting on a foundation of two giant steal beams. Their crossing marks a crucial point of departure, roots the rising sculpture within a very particular place.

The elements ascended from there in a very common-sense, almost practical fashion, the old capelin silo standing firmly on for legs on top of the cross. I had foreseen some kind of a body, hence the symmetrical rule of thumb in the process of bringing pairs of items together, beginning with two huge truck floors resting face to face on the silo. Then two giant showels, two wagons, a boat wagon paired with a truckbody, on top of that a refrigirator and finally ... a chair.

These were laid on the floor of the harbour, wielded together and finally erected on top of the base structure.

Aesthetics as we commonly talk about it was never a motor in the process, the various items were supposed to be able to manifest whatever form they demanded out of gravity, the inner balance of the different pieces and elements coming together.

Nevertheless, in hinsight, it appeared and reflected a surprising reflection of man’s challenge, life and battle on excatly that site; how you choose a place, how you capture whatever that place offers from the sea, guarding it untill it is showeled up and away, untill it scales down, reaching the human realm by ending up in someone’s fridge – and finally you pracitacally feel the person sitting in the kitchen chair, nourished and energized by whatever started in the x below.

The sculpture has now withstood particularly bad weathers during it’s first winter – but still stands strong and unmoved, reflecting at least to me its inner balance, power and resilience, echoing beginning and end of life’s history on the site and essentially, life’s circle.

Revelation

Revelation from 2014, underlines this intention with images that appear almost magical. Each print shows a mysterious, undulating light and shadow, the light coming from above. There is an intense, almost erotic quality to the im- shapes accentuated by the strange light, almost impossibly soft, that caresses each fold. The shapes are in fact sheets of bubble wrap, pho- below the surface of a lake. This revelation in no way detracts from the beauty of the image, though

we may be surprised to realise that such beauty can be found in such an unremarkable material. The series does, however, tell us a lot about Sigurðsson’s method and the nature and half in the making, the creation

of these photographs involved his learning to scuba dive and then end- less experiments in several locations he was searching for – the sort of effort we normally associate with wildlife photographers who trek for months through the jungle to shoot the title of the series refers to, and that seems to sum up the artistic intention of Sigurðsson’s whole body of work, is that such wonders can be found right in front of our eyes – if only we have an eye for them.

revelation ix-icolourphotographs145 × 96 cm

Concrete Conception

Concrete Conceptions from 2014 that shows images of plain concrete – the most common and unremarkable material in our man-made environment – taken through an electron microscope. - structures, sometimes crystalline and sometimes looking disconcert- ingly organic.

Sides

The 2011 series Sides was part of an exhibition that included a video and large flag stitched together from oily rags discarded by workers at the dry dock where the photographs were also taken. They show details of the hulls of ships being repainted in the dry dock. At first sight they look like abstract paintings and in a sense they are: Abstract paintings discovered in the wild. Only a closer look reveals more details that betray the photographic origin of the image. These photographs are presented in pairs with each pair showing two very similar but subtly different images, in fact the two sides of the hulls, starboard and port. The effect is of an image bisected, a slight shift or displacement that is mildly disconcerting and lends an unexpected tension to the experience, as if these were stereoscopic images meant to be somehow merged. The pieces also document different stages of the painters’ work, from the first stage where patches of primer paint have been applied to cover the most worn parts to the final, finishing coat. In the former, we can still see a lot of detail in the worn sections of older paint but in the latter we are presented with flat areas of colour where the only detail is in the welds and small bumps in the steel plates – the image has become more abstract and impersonal. A further complication lies in the fact that each frame is split horizontally across the middle with one colour above and another below. On the ship this marks the waterline but in the images the effect is of a painterly decision, a deliberate, Rothko-like device to enhance our experience of the colour fields. It is surprising that so much can be packed into what would seem to be perfectly simple photographs of something our gaze would normally hardly register but this is precisely what makes Hrafnkell’s approach so captivating. The photographs don’t show anything new or unexpected, no hidden aspect of our world or unique moment, and there is no trick involved. Rather, their fascination lies in how they play on our perception and what they reveal about how our gaze orients our visual world.

sides v2012two colour photographs156 × 125 cm each

sides iii2012two colour photographs156 × 125 cm each

sides i2012two colour photographs156 × 125 cm each

sides ii2012two colour photographs156 × 125 cm each

sides iv2012two colour photographs156 × 125 cm each

Autocast

Autocast no. 01-10

2011Pigment inkjet print on photo rag paper37 x 47 cm

Edition of 3

Eruptions

A doctored and mediated photo construction, concerning the hyper-mediated Eyjafjallajökull volcanic eruption of 2010, in which a seemingly serene shot of snowy mountains and a blue sky (the whole image has been manipulated by the artist) can be opened to reveal stupendous billowing smoke as captured in a stock photograph. Call it a window of sorts, a faux window that reveals a stylized volcanic eruption, a manipulated view of a geological event that quickly turned into a global media frenzy, and it is one of numerous nature-culture collisions in the exhibition. Still, Sigurdsson’s manipulated work is majestic, awe-inspiring, and transportive, and retains an aura of a nature-based sublime.

Uplift

Bales of rubbish, in the series Uplift from 2008, hang as if floating in a dark space but sensuously lit to intensify the colours of the plastic bags of which they are composed.

uplift 52008colour photograph182.5 × 110 cm 72

uplift 42008colour photograph182.5 × 110 cm 73

uplift 22008colour photograph182.5 × 110 cm 74

uplift 12008colour photograph182.5 × 110 cm

Conversion

Conversion 2007–2008, drives the ambivalent message home. It is a triptych that shows a beautiful winter landscape when open but closes to reveal a rubbish dump, framed close and in nauseating detail. This piece was exhibited in the Louvre during Paris Photo in 2006 and attracted much attention. Many interpreted it forits environmentalist message but if that were its only statement it would we must see it in the context of Sigurðsson’s mission to question our sense of beauty and our understanding of ourselves and our desires. Like the earlier series, Con- version plays on the frisson between the subject and its presentation, and the ambiguity of presenting man made rubbish as being somehow the equivalent of the landscape.

Looking at these images of rubbish we are torn between revulsion and attraction, disgust and desire. the image beautiful. This aspect of Sigurðsson’s art can be expanded into Freudian territory but the artworks do not seem to invite such an interpretation over any other. They are subtle but their effect is immediate and one can then unpack the associations and analyse one’s response at leisure – like the start of an affair when everything is revealed but remains to be enjoyed.

Crew

Fillings

Filling 12005colour photograph 165 × 110 cm

Filling 22005colour photograph 165 × 110 cm

Bags

There is probably nothing that we are more determined to let pass unnoticed than our own waste and rubbish, making the 2004 series Bags all the more provocative. Showing plastic rubbish bags set out on London streets, these images invite us to focus on their colours: under the street lights or a set like sentries in the night.

This was rubbish and the next one appeared already in 2005 with Filling, images of compacted domestic rubbish, baled up for transportation to a the tall bales a dignity that contrasts jarringly with the details of what the bales contain.

Untitled 1-7

2003-2004

colour photograph 84.5 × 125 cm

Nýbyggingar

Nýbygging 1-72001–2004colour photograph120 × 140 cm

Tents

untitled2001 colour photograph 74,5 × 110 cm

untitled2001colour photograph 101 × 150 cm

untitled2000colour photograph 74,5 × 110 cm

untitled2000colour photograph 74,5 × 110 cm

untitled2000colour photograph 74,5 × 110 cm

untitled 2001 colour photograph 74,5 × 110 cm

untitled2000colour photograph 74,5 × 110 cm

untitled2000colour photograph 74,5 × 110 cm

untitled 2001 colour photograph 74,5 × 110 cm

untitled2001 colour photograph 74,5 × 110 & cm 110 × 165 cm

untitled2001 colour photograph 74,5 × 110 cm & 110 × 165cm

Urban Mountains

The series Urban Mountains shows piles of snow left by city workers when clearing the streets, a man-made temporary landscape thoughtlessly shovelled up and left to melt but still clearly evoking the more majestic mountains of Iceland’s highlands. These images completely redefine and also complicate the representation of landscape and our relationship to it: How can we continue to think of the nature as sublime and irreplaceable when it can be so casually reproduced in our cities without our noticing? They also show us how Hrafnkell was to achieved this: The isolated subject, framed so as to separate it clearly from its context, allowing the camera to capture its sheer visual beauty, all the more captivating because it surprises us.